Musings from Arledge: Offensive Questions, Offensive Line, and Starting Off the Season

I asserted in last week’s Musings that USC would likely be a
much better football team in 2019 than 2018. I base that conclusion, in part,
on changes to the coaching staff and Clay Helton’s stated emphasis on improving
team discipline. But I also reach this conclusion for the simple reason that
USC in 2018 was historically bad for USC football, and it’s hard to be
historically anything (good or bad) two years in a row.

This logic certainly applies to the offense, our focus
today. How bad was USC offensively in 2018? By some critical measures, USC had
a worse offense than Oregon State. No, not the Chad Johnson and TJ
Houshmandzadeh Oregon State. Last year’s Oregon State. The 2-10 Oregon State
that lost to Cal 49-7. The Trojans tied Oregon State in scoring offense (90th
in the country) and were well behind Oregon State in total offense (the Trojans
were 83rd in country). We did crush OSU in yards-per-play. (Take
that, Beavs!)

USC will be better in 2019. How much better will obviously
determine not only wins and losses next year, but probably some careers as well.

Why will USC be better offensively? Let’s start with
personnel. I know there are question marks, and we’ll get to those. But how
many teams in the country can say that their top four receivers and top three
running backs will all make NFL rosters, and that most of those players will receive
NFL checks for many years? (I’m not even
including 5-star incoming players like Kyle Ford.) No team in the Pac 12 and
few teams nationally have the wealth of skill talent on offense that USC has. And
few teams have the athletes defensively to match up with all those guys … when
USC is coached well enough on offense to generate mismatches.

And that’s really the question now, isn’t it? Let’s face it:
we know relatively little about Graham Harrell. But he does seem to have an
offensive philosophy, one that he learned from some pretty good offensive
coaches. It seems strange to say this – you know, USC being a major college
football program, and one that happens to have lots of hardware in the trophy
case – but having a clear offensive philosophy is probably already an
improvement over what we’ve had.

The buzzword this spring has been “simplify.” And I can see
the appeal of having an offense that the team understands so they think less
and play faster more. But I do wonder whether complexity was really the problem
with last year’s offense. How complex can an offense be when casual fans who
have never played or coached the game can predict play calls with 60% accuracy?
Last year’s offense made anybody with a TV and an IQ over 75 into a Tony Romo
impersonator. (“It looks like they’re going to hand it to the halfback
off-tackle, Jim. Yep.”) That’s not complexity. How USC can have receivers
running into each other because they don’t know the routes when Aunt Edna
literally knows what play is coming before the snap even sails over JT Daniels
head is beyond me.

(Okay, deep breath. You’re ranting now. Keep in together.)

Listen, the problem last year wasn’t complexity, at least
not any kind of complexity that involves unpredictability and surprise. Last
year’s offense had the complexity of an iPhone; yes, there may be some stuff
inside that is confusing to some people (mainly USC coaches and players, I
think), yet we still can predict with accuracy what it’s going to do every
time.

I believe part of the problem for some time now was USC’s
tendency to pick bits and pieces of other offenses that work and then run some
bastardized version of that play or set in a Frankenstein’s monster offense. Chip
Kelly dominated the conference with the read option. We can run the read option
too! Of course, Kelly’s version was an option; the QB could give it to the
halfback, keep it, or throw it to the wideout on his side. USC took away both
of the latter two options and just ran it to the halfback, allowing the defense
to know exactly what is coming. It was the equivalent of running the wishbone
and always handing it to the fullback. That’s not complex. That’s just weird. (In
fairness, the Trojans did sometimes throw the slant off that play, something
that Ohio State apparently scouted before the Cotton Bowl.)

So, yes, while I don’t know much about Graham Harrell, I
would be stunned – stunned! – if he isn’t a significant improvement running the
offense. This offense will move the ball and score points. It will. Because
Graham Harrell will do at least an adequate job of getting the ball to
playmakers in space, and USC has a whole lot of playmakers that can do
something if given the ball in space.

Are there question marks? Sure. Start with the most
important position: we still don’t know what USC has at QB. Half of the USC
community is pumped about Jack Sears, and I love his athleticism and what he
did as a high school senior. But he couldn’t beat out a true freshman last year
because of his inconsistency in practice. That has to be at least a little
troubling to those wearing “Jack Sears 2019” T-shirts. And JT Daniels? He was a
true freshman last year, so the guy gets a mulligan. But, make no mistake, he needs
a mulligan. When confronted with a pass rush and adversity for the first time
in his young life, his mechanics and decision-making melted down. And there are
real questions about his leadership.

Now I suspect USC will be okay at QB, because Sears and
Daniels both have talent, they were young last year, I’m assuming Graham
Harrell is competent, and whoever wins the job has tall, fast, former 5-star Devon
Williams as his fourth best receiver. That’s pretty ridiculous. I also
suspect that Tim Drevno will get this snapping issue under control, so the USC
quarterbacks don’t look like they’re stabbing the air trying to find bills in
one of those cash grab machines at the start of every play.

And that brings us to our annual conversation about USC’s
offensive line. Look, guys, I don’t know what to tell you. Tim Drevno is a good
coach. That will help. The offense will be better coordinated. That will help. And
these guys are blocking for what amounts to the US Army All-American roster at
the skill positions. (That’s not even much of an exaggeration.) Those are some
pretty good building blocks. If Bob Dylan is writing the songs and Slash is
playing lead guitar, how good does the rest of the band have to be to have some
modicum of success (including being better than a 2-10 Oregon State offense)?

USC’s offense won’t fail this year. The offense will move
the ball. It will score points. Those skill position athletes will make some
big plays. I think this offense will be in the top 3 in the conference in yards
and points. I really do.

But that’s not what will decide the team’s fate this season.
Hanging 40 on a team like Arizona or Colorado is fine. But the question is whether
USC can have success against better football teams, and maybe most importantly,
whether USC can do anything on the ground. Can USC pick up a 3rd and
1? Can the offense run out the clock up a score with three minutes remaining? Can
it punch it in from the red zone, when passing lanes shrink? We haven’t seen
success in those areas in a long time, and I question whether USC even runs the
type of practices that you need to run to get good in those areas. Besides, Air
Raid offenses aren’t exactly known for their ability to bully the defense in
obvious running situations.

So I expect a much better offense, a good offense, but one
that will probably lack the physicality to be well-rounded. In any event, this
is a no-excuse year. JT Daniels isn’t the only one who was given a mulligan for
last year. Clay Helton has that USC has as much talent as any team on the
schedule. We agree, coach, and the question is whether that talent will shine
on Saturdays or will continue to hover in Oregon State territory next year. Clay
seems optimistic, but then again, doesn’t he always? He was optimistic before
last season when he said the team was on the doorstep of winning a national
title, and he was optimistic right as the wheels were falling off last season
when he told us to just wait until November. Hopefully that optimism will ripen
into production this year. We’ll see.

———————

There’s been a lot of chatter about the difficulty of USC’s
schedule next year, and the chatter is justified. But a lot of posters are
talking like the real schedule starts with Stanford. I’m not sure about that. Keep
an eye on Fresno State. Longtime USC fans already know what it means to Fresno
guys to play at the Coliseum. Reggie had to pull out a cape to beat those guys
in 2005.

And this Fresno program is good. Those guys were 12-2 last
year. They blew out UCLA, beat Boise State in the conference championship game,
and beat Arizona State in their bowl game – which means they probably would
have won the Pac 12 south. And Jeff Tedford is a good football coach. Tedford
was always talked about as a quarterback guru, and he needs to be since he’s
breaking in a new QB. But I think he was always more impressive building
running games. USC had all the recruiting juice when Tedford was at Cal, but
Tedford was the guy who kept recruiting and developing running backs: Marshawn
Lynch, Jahvid Best, JJ Arrington, Justin Forsett, etc.
Even with a new QB, don’t be surprised if
Tedford finds a way to gear up a running game. And after the way USC has
handled running games in the opener the past three years against Alabama (242
yards), Western Michigan (263 yards!), and UNLV (308 yards!!), don’t take that
Fresno team for granted. USC better bring its big-boy shoulder pads for that opener.

Author
Chris Arledge

Chris Arledge is a graduate of USC’s Gould School of Law and is the co-founder and managing partner of an intellectual property law firm. Chris’s forgettable football career started at Elsinore High School, where his Tigers defeated Kyle Wachholtz’s Norco squad for the league title (Bring on Brad Otton’s team, too!), and ended at William Jewell College, where Chris was a team captain and an all-conference defensive back.